Can Finnish and Estonian speakers understand each other?

Imagine an Estonian and a Finn trapped in a sauna. Would they be able to communicate to find a way out? 🤭
Mutual intelligibility within the Finno-Ugric language family is generally limited due to the significant linguistic differences between languages. We created this language challenge to give you a chance to see for yourself how well Finnish and Estonian speakers can understand each other based on similarities between those two languages. If you're a speaker of a Finno-Ugric language do volunteer in for the future videos so we can run more experiments like that. 🤓
📝 You can sign up via following volunteer form→ forms.gle/aZeSFSsFexbmxE7UA
The Finno-Ugric language family is a branch of the larger Uralic language family, which includes languages spoken primarily in Finland, Estonia, Hungary, and regions of Russia. This family consists of two main branches: Finno-Permic and Ugric. Some well-known languages in this family include Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian, as well as various minority languages such as Karelian, Udmurt, and Khanty.
🤗 Big thanks to 🇪🇪 Kristofer and 🇫🇮 Antti for participating in the video.
🇫🇮 You can learn Finnish with Antti here: www.italki.com/en/teacher/874...
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#learnestonian #learnfinnish #languagechallenge #languages

Пікірлер: 1 500

  • @Ecolinguist
    @Ecolinguist10 ай бұрын

    The episode 2 is finally out → kzread.info/dash/bejne/eIZ6yrFxZKeso7w.html 🤓

  • @sn2a1

    @sn2a1

    10 ай бұрын

    Suomalaiset ymmärtävät helposti kirjoitettua virolaisten kieltä. Virolaiset ymmärtävät yleensä suomenkieltä. Ääntäminen on tosi erilaista nykyään.

  • @dariusdarius008

    @dariusdarius008

    9 ай бұрын

    ​@@sn2a1..ir ką jūs čia taip parašėt, gerbiamasis (gerbiamoji?)? Manot, kiti negali atsakyti nesuprantama kalba?:))...

  • @lolsoina

    @lolsoina

    7 ай бұрын

    @@sn2a1ma ei saa palju aru

  • @KibyNykraft

    @KibyNykraft

    3 ай бұрын

    ​@@sn2a1Seems like estonian has a bit more of scandinavian than the finnish. Like kelder (norwegian "kjeller" / english "cellar / basement"). And "ruum" (norwegian "rom", finnish "huone", english "room")

  • @kristofersokk1580
    @kristofersokk1580 Жыл бұрын

    I'm the Estonian speaker in this video. I really liked participating, it was fun. Unfortunately, halfway through the challenge, I started thinking about pantry instead of cellar, so I got them mixed up. Cellar is not next to kitchen, but oh well. And äikesetorm is lightning storm not thunder storm, mürin is thunder, but because we never say thunder storm, I got them mixed up also. It seems trivial now later that äikene, another form of äike, and ukkonen are cognates.

  • @oh2mp

    @oh2mp

    Жыл бұрын

    I am a Finnish speaker I guessed both your words very easily. It may have been little helpful that I saw the Estonian text while you were speaking.

  • @maaritlarinen9056

    @maaritlarinen9056

    Жыл бұрын

    Finnish and Swedish speaker here. I understood quite a lot of what you said, but I do think me speaking Swedish also helped seeing that Estonian apparently has tons of German loanwords that Finnish doesn't have. I do have to ask, do you speak any particular dialect or do you also speak Russian? I thought I picked up a few Russian influences in your pronunciation - mostly some hints of palatalisation - that I haven't heard before. Not that I've heard a lot of Estonian through the years, but still.

  • @matskustikee

    @matskustikee

    Жыл бұрын

    @@maaritlarinen9056 in my pointwiew pretty regular Estonian, nothing unusual but yes we have in Estonian language ton's of loans word which makes Finnish And Estonian Language so appart

  • @TheTooBig

    @TheTooBig

    Жыл бұрын

    Southern Osthrobothnia here. Just wanted to say hello and to tell you have a nice day, kalevipoeg are strong! :)

  • @mRRandak

    @mRRandak

    Жыл бұрын

    Guys, ukkonen is related to skygod Ukko, which in Estonian also was the skygod Uku, as it was written in our many stories two centuries ago, our oral heritage. Mythologically indeed the connection is there, but quite obscure.

  • @bobbytables464
    @bobbytables464 Жыл бұрын

    Having grown up bilingual in Estonian and Finnish and being of a generation where almost everyone spoke Finnish rather fluently, seeing Kristofer being completely at a loss is a good reminder that our languages are absolutely riddled with false friends (huone/hoone, etc).

  • @KohaAlbert

    @KohaAlbert

    Жыл бұрын

    In Estonian: * Kodu; Koda. (home; a shelter, a workshop). * Kott/koti/kotti (a bag / of bag's / into the bag.) 💰

  • @pinkbabycrocs5577

    @pinkbabycrocs5577

    Жыл бұрын

    Those two words aren't exactly false friends, i think, because the meanings are still related and similar :) You can see how they might have drifted from the shared original meaning of 'to house something', so 'huone' = room, 'hoone' = building. There are a lot of these, actually. 'Talo' = house, 'talu' = farmhouse; 'puhua' = to speak (a language), 'puhuma' = to blow air from the mouth, but Estonians even say 'juttu puhuma' = to have a chat. Hallitus/hallitus is a good example of false friends, though, because the meanings (and origins, as far as I know) are completely different (government/mold).

  • @omenoid

    @omenoid

    Жыл бұрын

    ​@@pinkbabycrocs5577 Many "false friends" are of course cognates, but the original meanings are sometimes preserved in certain phrases, and in dialectal words, too: e.g. FI "päivänpaiste" = "sunshine", modern FI "aurinko" = "the Sun" = "Päike" EST

  • @smithno-mates2341

    @smithno-mates2341

    Жыл бұрын

    @@pinkbabycrocs5577 There is definitely a connection in the puh-part, there are words like 'puhkua' and 'puhista' which are describing different ways to blow air and still related to speech.

  • @andrewburbidge

    @andrewburbidge

    Жыл бұрын

    @pinkbabycrocs5577 Hallitus/halitus Mould/mold - growing within and fixing sand in two halves of a moulding box so that the sand doesn't fall apart when the two halves are brought together? Government, holding the country together, in a way of thinking? Also, see my comment further up the page, about connections between numbers in Finnish/Estonian and Greek. Also - Olympus - written in Ancient Greek with the symbol for the smooth breathing - so, pronounced with an initial 'h' or very similar. From the ancient halls and 'impos' - imposed authority? In German, Rathaus - no common origin with what some wanted to say about people they didn't like?

  • @mortenoconnell7977
    @mortenoconnell7977 Жыл бұрын

    Finnish and Estonian: Visible understanding Hungarian: I think I might sit this one out 😅

  • @robertkukuczka9469

    @robertkukuczka9469

    Жыл бұрын

    I speak Hungarian as a Polish man but I do not undestand a word of Finnisg nor Estonian.

  • @mortenoconnell7977

    @mortenoconnell7977

    Жыл бұрын

    @@robertkukuczka9469 yeah precisely my point. Although there are 100s of words present in hungarian that are cognates with both finnish and estonian, most are too different to initially realise their commonality. Either way, this doesn't make the languages mutually intelligible

  • @lissandrafreljord7913

    @lissandrafreljord7913

    Жыл бұрын

    Is the relationship of Hungarian with Finnish/Estonian like comparing German to Spanish/Italian, or even worse, Hindi to Spanish/Italian?

  • @mortenoconnell7977

    @mortenoconnell7977

    Жыл бұрын

    @@lissandrafreljord7913 yeah pretty much. Maybe something like polish, Russian or indo-iranian languages to English. They're fairly distant since hungarian split from proto-finno-ugric like 3000 to 4000 years ago

  • @shimokitazawa1217
    @shimokitazawa1217 Жыл бұрын

    The cadence of Finnish is really something. Love the way it sounds. Their poetry must be on another level.

  • @maxkho00

    @maxkho00

    Жыл бұрын

    That cadence is exploited to its full extent in the Finnish (pseudo-)folk song Ievan Polka.

  • @GdzieJestNemo

    @GdzieJestNemo

    Жыл бұрын

    paparapapaaaa :D

  • @naukumaija7056

    @naukumaija7056

    Жыл бұрын

    I find this so interesting to hear, can you describe what's so special about it to you? I find it so hard to understand how it sounds special since I'm Finnish, hahah

  • @MikkoRantalainen

    @MikkoRantalainen

    Жыл бұрын

    Finnish words are actually spoken in pretty slow sequence but most foreigners catch syllables instead of whole words and think that Finns speak really fast. When native speakers pronounce words, every syllable has frequency that goes from higher frequency downwards during the syllable and the pitch is again raised higher when new syllable starts. Double vocals (e.g. "aa") are pronounced as diphthongs with lowering pitch, too. Most Finns do not seem notice this and claim that you pronounce short vowel vs long vowel instead because that's how they mentally think about it while speaking but they are actually doing diphthongs.

  • @keegster7167

    @keegster7167

    Жыл бұрын

    @@naukumaija7056 I can tell you that I find it to be one of the most beautiful languages on earth, because of its gradual rising and falling pitch, it’s continuous flow (in terms of vocal emphasis), smoothly encroaching creaky voice near the end of syllables, clear syllables, pleasing combinations of vowels, and rhythmic long and short vowels. To me, if English can be considered like a clarinet with sharp but decently smooth turns and with inconsistent, jazzy rhythm, then Finnish sounds like a violin. German may be more like a trumpet since it stops abruptly after each emphatic phrase, for comparison.

  • @j.l.5867
    @j.l.5867 Жыл бұрын

    As a Finn, I understood the exactly same words as Antti so I think this is quite representative of the intelligibility from Estonian to Finnish. It's a guessing game that relies on hearing some keywords that the languages share.

  • @corinna007

    @corinna007

    11 ай бұрын

    And even those key words can be tricky sometimes, it seems. Like in this video; "Huone" and "Hoone" sound almost exactly the same, but one means a room and the other means the entire building.

  • @nenirouvelliv

    @nenirouvelliv

    8 ай бұрын

    The basic words are pretty easy to understand, the more specialized the vocabulary gets the more clearly you can see how the languages have evolved in different directions since the middle ages.

  • @lentavahollantilainen7088

    @lentavahollantilainen7088

    Ай бұрын

    I understood more than Antti. Most of finns can more than Antti. In video you cant like guess

  • @YksiKaksi3

    @YksiKaksi3

    Ай бұрын

    Mun on vaikee olla ymmärtämättä ton eestiläisen kertomusta

  • @Iddhi5
    @Iddhi5 Жыл бұрын

    I'm Finnish speaking, living in Helsinki. For me, every visit to Tallinn is like an Estonian language course. Every time, even without trying, you learn new Estonian words and start understanding more.

  • @KohaAlbert

    @KohaAlbert

    Жыл бұрын

    Which is why the languages are close enough to be naturally aquireable (rather than truly needing to learn), while mutual intelligiblity out of blue can be challenging - almost at the reach. Actually learning the language is much quicker though.

  • @Mediaflashmob

    @Mediaflashmob

    Жыл бұрын

    Is it difficult for you Estonian language? As for me Russian, it seems crazy hard!

  • @maxkho00

    @maxkho00

    Жыл бұрын

    @@Mediaflashmob Of course not. Estonian is for Finns what Polish is for us. Even though Polish is objectively a hard language, for us Russians it's very easy since it's already so close to our native language. The same is almost certainly true for Finns learning Estonian.

  • @neasulavuori4955

    @neasulavuori4955

    Жыл бұрын

    @@maxkho00 indeed that sounds right

  • @Zestieee

    @Zestieee

    Жыл бұрын

    @@maxkho00 rather the same experience that I (native speaker of Italian) felt while first approaching Spanish. I wonder if there's a name for this sort of linguistical vicinity (other than "high mutual intelligibility"). Maybe "sister languages" is what I'm thinking.

  • @realmahadeo
    @realmahadeo Жыл бұрын

    I once learned basics of Estonian, and then when I was cycling outside of Helsinki and needed directions, I asked one old man, and we were able to communicate in a mix of Estonian and Finnish :) that was pretty awesome

  • @robleyusuf2566

    @robleyusuf2566

    Жыл бұрын

    Are Russian?

  • @realmahadeo

    @realmahadeo

    Жыл бұрын

    @@robleyusuf2566 I'm from Belarus so I speak Russian if that's the question

  • @robleyusuf2566

    @robleyusuf2566

    Жыл бұрын

    @@realmahadeo Yak Spravie? Don't worry that is only Belaruskiy I know. I have been in Belarus before in Minsk, Grodno and Vitebsky. I am from Somalia and people in Belarus often stare at me because of my skin colour, but besides from that they were very kind and generous. If people ask me how would I describe Human, my answer would be "Belarusian"

  • @realmahadeo

    @realmahadeo

    Жыл бұрын

    @@robleyusuf2566 thanks, spravy dobra :) I agree we have nice people, and hope things go well in our country. People stare at you because we don't have too many immigrants and are not used to diversity.

  • @robleyusuf2566

    @robleyusuf2566

    Жыл бұрын

    @@realmahadeo The problem Belarus has is the political conflict between Russia and the West(EU and USA) and no one is winning. I hope Belarus would not be like Ukraine. There is a dire situation in Ukraine. The world is on the verge of worldwar 3. These powers are also wrestling in Africa by using proxies.

  • @kristofevarsson6903
    @kristofevarsson6903 Жыл бұрын

    It's great to see Finnish and Estonian being so close as to _almost_ mean the same exact things, but being _just_ far away enough to confuse each other the first time around. It reminds me of that Breaking Bad meme where Walter asks Jessie wtf he's talking about. They're clearly communicating on a level of basic understanding, but the finer details get lost and cause some pretty funny misunderstandings.

  • @greendude96

    @greendude96

    Жыл бұрын

    One of the prime examples (that we're taught via jokes) of that would be the word "hallitus" which in Estonian means "mould, like on food etc) and in Finnish it means the "government"- which in turn in Estonian would be "valitsus" :D

  • @kristofevarsson6903

    @kristofevarsson6903

    Жыл бұрын

    @@greendude96 The government is the worst kind of mould, I have to agree LOL

  • @holoholopainen1627

    @holoholopainen1627

    11 ай бұрын

    There Are same words - but with different meaning - piim IS maito / raiskamine IS kuluttamista / soida IS ajaa autoa / laskemine IS ampumista ! There IS no maito - so drink vesi !

  • @punkodie
    @punkodie Жыл бұрын

    Man I wish us Hungarians could somehow participate in this series... But there is not anything remotely close to us. There are only those approximately 100 words which are still similar in Finnish/Estonian and Hungarian, but grammatically, vocabulary-wise and even the logic of the languages evolved so differently as we have all been exposed to very different types of languages since we parted around 4000 yrs ago. It is nice to see that Finns and Estonians still share mutual intelligibility to some extent :)

  • @littlemy1773

    @littlemy1773

    Жыл бұрын

    It would still be cool to see you represented though . To compare and contrast the words you share, and also, the ones you don’t

  • @mortenoconnell7977

    @mortenoconnell7977

    Жыл бұрын

    @@littlemy1773 there's a great video by bahador alast called "hungarian and estonian similarities" where two participants, kinda similar to this video, try and guess the corresponding cognate in the other person's language. It's super interesting but also highlights just how difficult and unrecognisable so many of these words are from one another

  • @littlemy1773

    @littlemy1773

    Жыл бұрын

    @@mortenoconnell7977 I’m subbed to his channel as well, so I’ll go and find that video . Thank you 🙏

  • @apmoy70

    @apmoy70

    Жыл бұрын

    Welcome to the club...

  • @omenoid

    @omenoid

    Жыл бұрын

    Of course we would. The accent when speaking English is very similar but we (Hun-Fin) share only a few conjugate words. However, I had a Hungarian-born piano teacher in Finland, and I loved her, and my niece speaks quite fluent Hungarian. But in the context of Uralic languages, we have to remember that Hungarian is still about as distant to Finnish as Swedish is to Greek. I.E. they belong to the same language family, but they're quite different.

  • @KristjanBeilmann
    @KristjanBeilmann Жыл бұрын

    Both languages are beautiful. In this video, the Finnish speaker put much more effort into clear articulation.

  • @bobbytables464
    @bobbytables464 Жыл бұрын

    Äike and ukkonen are almost cognate. The root words are "äi" and "ukko", both meaning "old man" (Finnish still has the word "äijä" that also means "old man"). The old Finnic god of thunder was shared by Finns and Estonians and his name was various forms of "old man". Ukko, Äijä or Äijö in Finnish and Uku in Estonian (and clearly he was also called some form of "äi"). So in both languages, the word for thunder is the name of the thunder god (meaning old man) plus a diminutive suffix (äi-ke, ukko-nen).

  • @MT-eo6tq

    @MT-eo6tq

    Жыл бұрын

    The most common meaning of the word "äi" in Estonian is father in law.

  • @vulc1

    @vulc1

    Жыл бұрын

    In Estonian, "ätt" (also dialectal variation "äit") means an old man.

  • @MT-eo6tq

    @MT-eo6tq

    Жыл бұрын

    @@vulc1 But eit means an old woman :D

  • @mihkel86

    @mihkel86

    Жыл бұрын

    Rspct ❤

  • @Microphunktv-jb3kj

    @Microphunktv-jb3kj

    Жыл бұрын

    väike äike päike :D äi doesnt mean old man ... why are you lieing lol :D "vana ätt" or just "ätt" would be what finnish use ukko... äi is like relational title

  • @mousetung6107
    @mousetung6107 Жыл бұрын

    As an Estonian my first guess for the korrusmaja/kerrostalo was also a shopping centre. I was thrown off by it being a building that's only in cities/towns. Estonian countryside is full of blocks of flats from the soviet era.

  • @juuliawarrior1188
    @juuliawarrior1188 Жыл бұрын

    I’m from Finland and I surprised that I actually was able to guess both of those Estonian words right, I understood pretty much and it was really cool!

  • @deithlan

    @deithlan

    Жыл бұрын

    An Aurora fan! Jee!

  • @juuliawarrior1188

    @juuliawarrior1188

    Жыл бұрын

    @@deithlan Weee!

  • @niemandkeiner8057
    @niemandkeiner8057 Жыл бұрын

    Two of the most beautiful languages in the world.

  • @paulheydarian1281

    @paulheydarian1281

    Жыл бұрын

    🤔 It makes me think of Norsemen discussing something about hunting.

  • @Ounouh
    @Ounouh Жыл бұрын

    I'm a Finn who doesn't speak Estonian and I understood about 80% of the Estonian introduction. So many words are close enough to form understanding of what is being said as the word is in a sentence.

  • @naapsuvaimne740

    @naapsuvaimne740

    Жыл бұрын

    1 st time in finland i didnt understand anything, im from south estoniait was 2000 y or so when i visited finland 1 st time

  • @kehakaaluga7772

    @kehakaaluga7772

    Жыл бұрын

    This, I "totally" understood what was being said, with some words missing. Or could phonetically guesstimate when I clamp together the words. I don´t know how Antti didn't get cellar. Like "maja all, külm jah pime" mikähän voisi olla

  • @TheAlex29494

    @TheAlex29494

    Жыл бұрын

    nah to me it sounds like asfdsfuhsdfdsfhjdsf WORD asidjasoidjasoisd WORD asfihdaopifjwpejwgp WORD

  • @jattikuukunen

    @jattikuukunen

    Жыл бұрын

    Were you reading the subtitles? That felt like cheating. If I just tried to listen, I couldn't understand almost anything.

  • @kuura345

    @kuura345

    Жыл бұрын

    80% sounds very optimistic. I didn't understand that much.

  • @dddenes
    @dddenes Жыл бұрын

    Hello from the other branch of the Finno-Ugric tree (I am Hungarian). I just want to add here, that however I do not understand a single word what you say here, I stopped it for several times and checked the English captions too, to understand and possibly find anything to cognate, but no success (but even you guys have a hard time, whose languages are much closer, I don't know, what did I expect :D ). However I find these languages somehow close to mine, the way you guys say the words, the tune... It's like I have a grasp on it, but somehow it always slips away. It was a super interesting video for me, thank you for uploading it!

  • @ur-inannak9565
    @ur-inannak9565 Жыл бұрын

    What stood out to me most is that while the grammar and vocab is obviously very similar, the pronunciation is very different despite them being right beside each other. The way Estonian is pronounced it just has a general European sound, but Finnish sounds basically magic like every sentence is going to summon some ancient elves.

  • @JuhanaSiren

    @JuhanaSiren

    Жыл бұрын

    You have no idea what a nuisance the ancient elves ("haltija", sometimes written "haltia") are over here. If you ever visit Finland, check out how many signs specifically require you to obtain permission from the ancient elves ("...haltijan luvalla"). . . . : (just kidding)

  • @ThatBonsaipanda

    @ThatBonsaipanda

    Жыл бұрын

    Finnish would actually sound very close to estonian today but we had a language reform that imported a lot of rules from latin. Sometimes I actually prefer the og pronounciations of some really old words. :D

  • @tuijasaari1463

    @tuijasaari1463

    Жыл бұрын

    The oldest piece of written Finnish was on a birch bark, found nearby where nowadays lies the border between Finland and Russia. And that written piece was a spell. 😅

  • @Sipu97

    @Sipu97

    Жыл бұрын

    Thank you for our kind words about Finnish :) I feel the same way about my mother tongue

  • @kyyyni

    @kyyyni

    Жыл бұрын

    I think the main reasons that make Finnish sould "different"to Estonian are boundary gemination (affecting the rhythm) and vowel harmony. Apart from the standard language, Soutwestern Finnish dialects in general sound closer to Estonian (some of them not featuring boundary gemination for instance.) This makes sense because I think those areas historically had more connections to the southern side of the Gulf.

  • @mait1995
    @mait1995 Жыл бұрын

    For an estonian, living in Finland for 2 years, this feels just absurd how it's possible not to understand those sentences. Funny thing about learning finnish is that, once it "clicks" , it's permanent and the language is basically unlocked. But some years ago I was exactly as clueless as the estonian guy in the video.

  • @john2335

    @john2335

    Жыл бұрын

    This Kristofer fella was obviously not the fastest puzzle solver. First he aknowledges it usually occurs in spring and summer. Then proceeds with "is it snow?" 🤣

  • @watermelooneboi8465

    @watermelooneboi8465

    Жыл бұрын

    @@john2335 i don't think he understood that it's in spring or summer, since the words for those in estonian and finnish are quite different. i think he just understood that it happens in estonia and finland

  • @john2335

    @john2335

    Жыл бұрын

    @@watermelooneboi8465 iirc the guy literally said something like " ok so it appears at spring and/or summer right?" Followed with " is it snow? ". I should rewatch but really not in the mood so got to rely on a month old memory 😔

  • @kane3825

    @kane3825

    Жыл бұрын

    ​@@john2335 it can get snowy here in springs too, not often but possible

  • @john2335

    @john2335

    Жыл бұрын

    @@kane3825 are you related to the Kristofer by any chance? If you were trying to get to snow, would the first questions on your mind be "is it at spring AND summer?" 🤣

  • @keigezellig
    @keigezellig Жыл бұрын

    In my native Dutch we have exactly the same word for cellar as in Estonian. I learned that Estonian has a lot of (low)German influences due to trade through the Hanseatic League.

  • @corinna007

    @corinna007

    11 ай бұрын

    @@paganismfe Finnish also has the word Reissu.

  • @svency8896

    @svency8896

    23 күн бұрын

    The main Estonian dialect has a lot of influence from the German/Swedish language. For example köök (kitchen) comes from Köket which is from Sweden. Härra (mister) comes from Herr, which comes from German.

  • @joeljezequel
    @joeljezequel Жыл бұрын

    I started to learn finnish 2 years ago, and this summer I will go to Helsinki and Tallinn (at last, my trip was initialy screduled in... 2020). I was very curious to see the differences between finnish and estonian, and this video was very fun to watch. And I was able to understand 70% of the finnish, which is a great win for me as I only have 80 hours of lessons for adults per year (and the help of Yle Kielikoulu).

  • @Rafaelinux

    @Rafaelinux

    Жыл бұрын

    Heyy! Glad you made it! I purchased the tickets to go back in 2019, but then 2020 happened. Neither my Finnish lessons nor my trip survived that, unfortunately

  • @xolang
    @xolang Жыл бұрын

    kiitos! would be interesting to see how much mutual intelligibility there is with a Karelian speaker too. 😁

  • @roman_pokora

    @roman_pokora

    Жыл бұрын

    And also with a Hungarian speaker

  • @elporrovegano

    @elporrovegano

    Жыл бұрын

    ​@@roman_pokora That is 0. There is unfortunately no intelligibility.

  • @punkodie

    @punkodie

    Жыл бұрын

    @@roman_pokora like 100 words are still similar, and that's pretty much it.. unless we throw in casual loanwords from Germanic languages and Latin

  • @pcongre

    @pcongre

    Жыл бұрын

    +Sámi, would be awesome! (...maybe Võro & Meänkieli too?)

  • @burnedburger9869

    @burnedburger9869

    Жыл бұрын

    As a Finn I can say that Karelian is fairly easy to understand, at least after getting used to it for a while. I can understand ~70-90% of words in spoken language and 85-95% in written, so basically you can just guess the rest based on the context. There's also some variety to how strong the accent is when talking, so whenever the speaker has a strong russian accent, the spoken language can be harder to understand. Hungarian, on the other hand, is practically impossible to understand. Some words share the same origin, yes, but the main similarities are, as far as I know, in the grammar, which doesn't really help as naturally vocabulary is way more important when understanding a language.

  • @kr0pp
    @kr0pp Жыл бұрын

    I speak both Estonian and Finnish, so watching Kristofer with no knowledge of Finnish still be able to pick up some meaning from what Antti was saying is quite impressive. Good job both of you, I honestly expected there to be less common understanding.

  • @Pippis78
    @Pippis78 Жыл бұрын

    Finn here. I tended to understand everything around the key words pretty well 😀 Like "it has a ??? and when you go into it, you'll see ??? it has ????" Probably pretty indicative of which thing in a language change faster and which slower. Especially with the "tent" I got a pretty good picture about how you can take with you while travelling etc. but got on the wrong track for a while because at the start I though he said it's made out of glass. Actually he said "thing"=asi, which is asia in Finnish but I misheard it as Lasi which is glass. But really perhaps even more than 50% of the words in that were pretty much the same words or very similar in Finnish. Forest, travel, set up, make/do, be, can. Whole sentences really that were totally understandable especially on my second round also seeing the words written. Lightweight and fits into a backpack happened to be a sentence with almost totally dissimilar words. Edit: Actually not really "ja see mahub" is "ja se mahtuu" for instance. I wanted a proper challenge and only listened, seeing the words written makes understanding A LOT easier. Such conversations between estonian and finnish can be hilariously confusing because the meanings of similar/same words have changed into _slightly_ different directions, but not completely. It can be more confusing than if they meant totally different things. Like hoone/huone is house/room, estonian "maja" means house while in finnish "maja" is a small cabin or something kids build from sticks outside or from blankets inside. Linna I think means city/town in estonian? But in finnish it's castle. Mis/missä is "what"(?) in estonian but "where" in finnish. These sort of minute differences can be super confusing.

  • @KohaAlbert

    @KohaAlbert

    Жыл бұрын

    Est: kodu(home), koda (dwelling; workshop; ...) Similar appearing/sounding: kott, koti, kotti - bag 🛍️💰

  • @mRRandak

    @mRRandak

    Жыл бұрын

    Castle in Estonian is loss, coming from German schloss. But a fortress is called linnus, and I guess linn originally came from the fortress.

  • @warnerbf
    @warnerbf Жыл бұрын

    I lived in Finland for a year in 93-94, learned the language there and still love it. I visited Estonia in 2017 and was amazed at how similar yet not mutually intelligible Estonian sounds in relation to Finnish. Still, when you delve deeper into both and pay closer attention to structures, some things are quite similar. Both are fascinating languages.

  • @DG_427

    @DG_427

    10 ай бұрын

    Opit suomea vuodessa?

  • @ronshlomi582
    @ronshlomi582 Жыл бұрын

    This is great! I love that you are starting to feature more non-Indo-European languages on the channel.

  • @LexMadafaka

    @LexMadafaka

    Жыл бұрын

    Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian are the original Old-European langauges and nations.

  • @user-qv9lj8jn2b

    @user-qv9lj8jn2b

    Жыл бұрын

    There is not a language like Indo-European. It's all false idea. Read Sri Aurobindo. All Indian words came to European languages through Greeks along with their religion. Greeks were good familar wih Vegas and Upanishads. Only 300 or 400 years ago Europeans were leading wildlife knowing not what is a soap or savon, sabyn from Turkish.

  • @jasminekaram880

    @jasminekaram880

    Жыл бұрын

    @@user-qv9lj8jn2b (updated) No that is conspiracy fringe theories that have no support in linguistic science. Read actual texts in comparative linguistics and archeological works by the likes of David Anthony like Horse, wheel and language. Indo-European is proven by regular sound law correspondence and and grammatical correspondence. What you say here makes no sense as Sanskrit and Germanic rooks very different routes from the common Proto-Indo-European language and it cannot be taken from Sanskrit as Sanskrit merged PIE e and o to a, while this did not happen in Greek, Germanic or Romance languages etc. Sanskrit is a satem language that merged PIE labio velars(k-like sounds) with plain velars but palatalized the palato-velars to sillibant sounds. Greek and Celtic did the reverse of that they merged the front or palatal velars with the plain and initially kept the labio velars so called centum languages. IE languages also shares patterns of inflection, vowel alteration etc. So no there is an indo-European language family. It is the same type of fools who deny that Hungarian for nationalist reason is related to Finnish. Also Indian words? No direct cognates of basic vocabulary and affixes. Not all languages in India is indo-European like the Dravidian languages. So please stop spreading conspiracy bullshit. Sri Aurobindo was a nationalist ideologue and not an linguist and many radical nationalists do deny comparative linguistics when it does not work with their beliefs. Other Indian nationalists do accept indo-European languages but they refuse to accept the current evidence that the language family did not originate in India and spread into India and that family most likely originated in the Eurasian steppes between Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

  • @jasminekaram880

    @jasminekaram880

    Жыл бұрын

    @@LexMadafaka No, Uralic aka Finno-Ugric languages do not have deeper history in Europe than Indo-European and both replaced paleo-European languages aka pre-IE and pre-Uralic languages of the Neolithic. The languages of Caucasus and Basque are survivors of these. IE developed in the Eurasian steppes of modern Ukraine.

  • @user-qv9lj8jn2b

    @user-qv9lj8jn2b

    Жыл бұрын

    @Jasmine Karam we can't contradict to Sri Aurobindo who is a fully self-awakened, God- realized person, an avatar, whose third Eye can see the past, present and the future all at once. I personally had this experience in opening the third eye for a very short time. Asians have passed by several evolution loops, whereas Europeans still remain barbaric by nature. Indians and Europeans don't have and can't have common link because of this evolutionary difference. To be sure read Sri Aurobindo

  • @heh9392
    @heh9392 Жыл бұрын

    As a Finn I could understand the Estonian man very well when reading off the Estonian subtitles even.

  • @jattikuukunen

    @jattikuukunen

    Жыл бұрын

    Reading the subtitles was much easier than listening. It felt like cheating.

  • @frankrault3190
    @frankrault3190 Жыл бұрын

    Surprised Dutchman here!!! There are a number of words in Estonian that were intelligible to me (like kelder (cellar) , room (ruimte), hyttesystem (hittesysteem/verwarmingsketel), torm/storm and many more! I would like to know if this is because of the Hanseatic trade.... Unfortunately I couldn't pick up Finnish words other than music, guitar and piano ;)

  • @Makapaa

    @Makapaa

    Жыл бұрын

    I'm 99% sure that I recently read something about how Estonian has very strong but somewhat obscure influences from dutch/germanic dialects due to, you guessed it right! The Hanseatic League and that trade influence in old trade towns like Reval(tallinn), Pärnu and other such centers along the Gulf of Riga!

  • @evahallik

    @evahallik

    Жыл бұрын

    There are lots of loan words from Low German (similar to Dutch)

  • @EggertPlays

    @EggertPlays

    Жыл бұрын

    The heaviest external contribution, nearly one third of the vocabulary, comes from Germanic languages, mainly from Low Saxon (Middle Low German) during the period of German rule, and High German (including standard German). The percentage of Low Saxon and High German loanwords can be estimated at 22-25 percent, with Low Saxon making up about 15 percent. Oh and Swedish as well. And what fascinates me even more is that there are Proto Indo-European words in as well. For example the word for sky in Estonian is "taevas" which is thought to have come from the Indo-European word "deiwos" ("deus" in Latin) which means the god of the sky. Its thought it came from the time when Finno-Ugric people and Indo-European lived close to one another near the Eurasian Steppes. It actually even sounds very similar!

  • @HK-su3ud

    @HK-su3ud

    Жыл бұрын

    As a Dutchman you should clearly understand Estonian word "kuningriik". Do you?

  • @frankrault3190

    @frankrault3190

    Жыл бұрын

    @@HK-su3ud Yes, sure, it's almost similar to (dutch) "koninkrijk", kingdom in English...

  • @maurocosti5600
    @maurocosti5600 Жыл бұрын

    As an italian mothertongue I just adore these languages especially finnish: so distant yet with a familiar pronunciation and our double consonants

  • @dididonna92

    @dididonna92

    Жыл бұрын

    La prosodia del finlandese mi ricorda troppo il sardo, non so perché 😂 è una lingua che adoro e abituata allo studio dell'inglese, ma anche del francese mi fa così strano che esistano altre lingue in cui si legge come si scrive 😅

  • @v.i.4268

    @v.i.4268

    Жыл бұрын

    Yes, I agree as a Finn, somehow it would be much easier to learn to speak Italian (compared to how different and difficult it is to speak e.g. English)

  • @Lena-cz6re

    @Lena-cz6re

    Жыл бұрын

    Wow, this is so interesting to hear. Apparently there is a thing called raddoppiamento sintattico which is a phonetic feature shared by Finnish and Italian

  • @jeevemasuda4690

    @jeevemasuda4690

    Жыл бұрын

    Probably due to the Finnish language’s writing system being adopted directly from Latin around 500 years ago. Should share a lot of similarities in pronunciation with Italian having being the ‘successor’ of Latin.

  • @Qwerty-ly8qk

    @Qwerty-ly8qk

    11 ай бұрын

    For Finns Latin would be much easier to learn than English, if it wasn't all over the media. Or at least the pronunciation

  • @LuigiElettrico
    @LuigiElettrico Жыл бұрын

    Two beautiful sounding languages I must say.

  • @mull529
    @mull529 Жыл бұрын

    That was very interesting. My mother tongue is English and a struggle with Finnish. I asked my husband if he could understand Estonian, he is Finnish, he said he heard familiar words but to our surprise they sometime mean some other thing. I was sort of smiling to myself when the Estonian speaker heard Ukkonen, going back to the thundergod. Very ancient.

  • @Javlafan

    @Javlafan

    Жыл бұрын

    That's mostly due to semantic drift or words which just happen to be similar but aren't actually related, like hallitus (government in FI and mould in EE). In Finnish it derives from the verb hallita, which is haldama in Estonian. But by the power of happen stance the word for mould in Estonian is written exactly the same as the Finnish word for government. The Estonian word for mould derives from hall (grey) which became the verb hallitama (to grey up/ to mould) which became hallitus.

  • @-RXB-

    @-RXB-

    Жыл бұрын

    It's the same with Swedish and Norwegian. That the same word sometimes means something else. For example, in Swedish "roligt" means fun, but in Norwegian it means calm. If you come up with synonyms for the words, like enjoyable in stead of fun, and peaceful or pleasant instead of calm, then they start coming closer together in meaning. But this difference in how words are used in everyday speech could still be enough to cause misunderstandings.

  • @notuxnobux

    @notuxnobux

    8 ай бұрын

    One another interesting thing. The word for hammer in finnish is "vasara", which comes from ukon vasara, which is the weapon of the thundergod ukko, which is similar to thor's hammer. The word comes from sanskrit vajra and avestan vazra. In sankrit the word vajra means thunderbolt and it's the weapon of the thundergod indra in hinduism.

  • @markohakkola5180

    @markohakkola5180

    8 ай бұрын

    ​@@notuxnobuxalso related is the word viagra

  • @SuperMrMuster
    @SuperMrMuster Жыл бұрын

    It's really amusing how the Kristofer the Estonian asks "Mis" where he means "what", but in colloquial Finnish "mis" means "where". It is short for "missä". If it was me, I would have leaned into these "false friends" for humor. The Finnish guy speaks very close to Standard Finnish, which is not untypical of Tampere. I would have liked to speak in a dialect and see how an Estonian is able to take that in.

  • @tommytowner792

    @tommytowner792

    Жыл бұрын

    Colloquial Finnish doesn't exist. It's really arrogant to say that your dialect is the default spoken language.

  • @SuperMrMuster

    @SuperMrMuster

    Жыл бұрын

    @@tommytowner792 The part about saying "mis" when meaning "missä" is very common across Finland, though there's probably some dialects that don't do it. Of all the dialects of Finnish, the way people speak in Tampere is actually very close to Standard Finnish and there's a fascinating history as to why that is. The distinction between standard Finnish and forms of colloquial Finnish is apt, because standard Finnish uses certain forms of words that are barely used in the vernaculars of any region. "Minä" and "sinä" , meaning "I" and "you", being the prime examples. Most dialects use either "mää", "mä", or "mie" instead of "minä", for example.

  • @julleri783
    @julleri783 Жыл бұрын

    I wish you guys would have talked more about the similarities and how you perceive the other language in the end. At least for me, as a Finnish person, it is usually quite natural and easy to grasp the grammatical components of Estonian sentences. I mean to recognize the verbs, nouns, particles and word endings, which usually are similar. Even if you don't understand the words, you can kinda get along😂 it's a funny feeling when you feel like you're supposed to understand. Fun video anyways! Been waiting for a Finnish and Estonian one!

  • @Zestieee

    @Zestieee

    Жыл бұрын

    Yeah it felt to me like the grammatical components as you said are the same, but probably most nouns or verbs aren't. Like you can easily spot prepositions or noun cases or verb conjugations but you can't really understand what is being said because of the different etymology of the nouns and verbs. Is that correct?

  • @julleri783

    @julleri783

    Жыл бұрын

    @@Zestieee yeah exactly! Usually I can't fully understand spoken Estonian at all, but it does help however when I can read text, because then I can more easily spot similar words that I might have missed hearing. Most nouns and verbs are completely different but there are also a lot that come from the same root or clearly are similar or the same. And then, just like in the video, every now and then you can spot a familiar word or two, and it suddenly gives you a lot of information about the context so you can make some guesses😂 It's just very fascinating to me! A d I'm so happy we have this sibling language in the big sea of Indo-European languages, so we can have some fun by ourselves in our own special little club 😁🇫🇮❤🇪🇪

  • @dreddykrugernew
    @dreddykrugernew Жыл бұрын

    The Finnish guy has a really good voice for learning Finnish, very clear and expressive in the words, as a northern English speaker it sounds more palatable than Estonian, really enjoyed the video...

  • @jattikuukunen

    @jattikuukunen

    Жыл бұрын

    He was mostly speaking Standard Finnish and articulating extra clearly.

  • @namelessghoul615

    @namelessghoul615

    Жыл бұрын

    He was purposefully articulating the words very clearly and speaking pretty slowly, so yeah.

  • @vulc1

    @vulc1

    Жыл бұрын

    Interesting that you appreciate the clarity of the Finnish speaker's voice, but at the same time it doesn't occur to you that this mumbling Estonian speaker is a very bad general representative of the language. And you proceed to making conclusions which language is more palatable...

  • @Antti-ox1ho
    @Antti-ox1ho Жыл бұрын

    I'm a Finn who learns the Estonian language as one of my minor subjects at the university I have a little bit Estonian blood in myself also and I love the Estonian language and Estonia!♥️ Ma armastan Eestit ja eesti keelt!♥️

  • @ehmzed
    @ehmzed Жыл бұрын

    Whenever I hear these two languages they sound practically the same to me (even in this video, spoken one after the other, really), so it was very interesting to see how intelligible they actually are. They seemed to understand each other fairly well, enough to have a conversation and ask to rephrase something when they didn't get it the first time.

  • @catholicdad

    @catholicdad

    Жыл бұрын

    As an English-speaking observer, it seems the Finnish is a bit more formal & Estonian a bit more understated, but it could be the individual speakers.

  • @Akuvision2011

    @Akuvision2011

    Жыл бұрын

    @@catholicdad the Finn is using a very proper articulation and deliberate announciation, the Est is a bit more relaxed. A bit like reading aloud a childrens book, I think in everyday speech they are more similar.

  • @dmitriystoyanov933
    @dmitriystoyanov933 Жыл бұрын

    I'm from Ukraine and i don't understand what guys said, but i want to say to estonian and finnish people - thank u for support!

  • @pinkbabycrocs5577

    @pinkbabycrocs5577

    Жыл бұрын

    💙💙💛💛

  • @Jumpulaaa

    @Jumpulaaa

    Жыл бұрын

    Hey, all the support we can afford. Take care dude!

  • @rr-ho6oo

    @rr-ho6oo

    Жыл бұрын

    💛💙🤍

  • @misva2rkon

    @misva2rkon

    Жыл бұрын

    No one is supporting Ukraine!!😂😂 Only people who make money in this war support.

  • @00-Mr_Altsu

    @00-Mr_Altsu

    Жыл бұрын

    @@misva2rkon what is your problem where are you from why you hate ukrain

  • @MrRubikraft
    @MrRubikraft Жыл бұрын

    I just looked up the etymology for kelder and kellari, and it's crazy how much this word travelled! I wouldn't have guessed it for such an everyday word. It comes from latin! For finnish: 1) latin: cellārium 2) middle low german: keller 3) swedish: källare 4) finish: kellari Wikipedia doesn't know from which language precisely estonian borrowed the word "kelder". Maybe from dutch? 1) latin: cellārium 2') middle dutch: kelre, kellere 3') dutch: kelder

  • @Hardwarebeer

    @Hardwarebeer

    Жыл бұрын

    My guess is Danish - kælder.

  • @KohaAlbert

    @KohaAlbert

    Жыл бұрын

    By memory, should be attributed to middle low German. In dialects "kelder" is "keller" - something I even still often tend to do...

  • @LexMadafaka

    @LexMadafaka

    Жыл бұрын

    Or vice-versa! Latin was an universal language created to understand each other in Europe. It is a blunt, simple language, but not so original.

  • @Anti_Septikum

    @Anti_Septikum

    11 ай бұрын

    Dutch people never came to Estonia

  • @OlaFosheimGrstad

    @OlaFosheimGrstad

    11 ай бұрын

    "Kellari" and " kjallari" is old norse, before that from Latin. However, in some Norwegian dialects that are closer to Norse it is often pronounced as various variations of "kjeldar".

  • @Vizivirag
    @Vizivirag Жыл бұрын

    My Hungarian brain throughout this challenge: why this sounds like something I should understand and why I'm not understanding O.O

  • @jarskil8862

    @jarskil8862

    Жыл бұрын

    Because Hungarian evolved in constant contact with neighbouring countries and kingdoms. Hungarians are same Finno-Ugric tribe, but the language in general is just totally different these days. Finns were isolated in forests with no contacts to speedily evolve the ancient language There are still some old words that are same

  • @mathiasma9869
    @mathiasma9869 Жыл бұрын

    After 6 months of doing Finnish Duolingo lessons I could understand a lot more. I am Estonian so that makes it easier. I got all the Finnish ones, because I understood enough words to fill the caps.

  • @kwj_nekko_6320
    @kwj_nekko_6320 Жыл бұрын

    I feel like, the misguessing of the question number 1 has something with 'Nordic way of thinking', rather than actual linguistic difference between Estonian and Finnish.

  • @Mustavariz
    @Mustavariz Жыл бұрын

    One of the funniest false friends I have heard of as a Finn is the word "hallitus", which means "government" in Finnish but "mold" in Estonian

  • @kyberorg

    @kyberorg

    10 ай бұрын

    Ruum/Ruumi is also good. Ruum (EST) means flat, Rummi (FIN) - dead body.

  • @Mustavariz

    @Mustavariz

    10 ай бұрын

    @@kyberorg I have never heard the word rummi. Ruumis is the common word for dead body in Finnish

  • @kyberorg

    @kyberorg

    10 ай бұрын

    @@Mustavariz yes, I got typo. Ruumis means same as laip/surnukeha in Estonian.

  • @incremental_failure

    @incremental_failure

    7 ай бұрын

    @@kyberorg Ruum means room, not flat. Flat would be korter.

  • @obonb4293
    @obonb4293 Жыл бұрын

    Hey! This video is amazing! As a Latvian speaker, for me it would be really intersting if Lithuanian speaker could understand our language. I know that Latvian is really influenced by Finnic Livonian so that's why for us it's so hard to understand Lithuanian speach.

  • @joshualieberman1059
    @joshualieberman1059 Жыл бұрын

    As a Russian I am so much in love with Finland and Estonia very cool and originally sounding language and awesome people honest and practical at the same time very good experience. Though those ethnic Russians that living in Estonia are kinda weird sometimes LOL.

  • @Yaroslav_VII_VII_VII

    @Yaroslav_VII_VII_VII

    Жыл бұрын

    Ээ! Что сразу странные то?))

  • @Sernik_z_rodzynkamii
    @Sernik_z_rodzynkamii Жыл бұрын

    I've been waiting for this comparison for quite some time. Thank you!

  • @hybirr
    @hybirr Жыл бұрын

    Great video! Just wanted to let you know that there's still an audience that loves these videos. Would love to see more of these, including language combinations that already happened.

  • @sam_k
    @sam_k Жыл бұрын

    Been waiting for this one! Would love another one of these with Finno-Ugric languages

  • @jarek6934
    @jarek6934 Жыл бұрын

    We need more videos of finno-ugric languages or Uralic languages!

  • @foobar1500
    @foobar1500 Жыл бұрын

    As a Finn I'm a bit surprised how little they understood each other. Then again my starting point for the assumption is that large portion of capital area Finns, and probably also Estonians in Tallinn are aware of a bit of vocabulary on the other country. For the purpose of this task that, of course would be a bit of a cheat, but with that maybe 50-200 word vocabulary (including some of those famous false friends) that at least many Tallinn-going Finns have absorbed it becomes dramatically easier to understand Estonian, and same goes the other way around too...

  • @vvv5892

    @vvv5892

    Жыл бұрын

    the finn spoke in a very book finnish, he would haw propably understood better if he spoke more in a spoken language pecos estonia has that kind of finnish more than the book finnish

  • @Sipu97

    @Sipu97

    Жыл бұрын

    Did you read the text while trying to guess the words? It's much easier that way, I'm sure that they only had to rely on their hearing.

  • @EdMcF1
    @EdMcF1 Жыл бұрын

    Over a thousand years of separation across the Baltic Sea, bridged here very well.

  • @fbkintanar
    @fbkintanar Жыл бұрын

    The two languages seem farther apart than I expected. I come from the Philippines, where there are somewhere between 150 and 180 indigenous languages. I speak Filipino/Tagalog, which doesn't have any very close relatives, and I also speak Cebuano, one of 25 Bisayan languages spoken in the Central and Southern islands. I got the impression that Finnish and Estonian are farther apart than any of the Bisayan languages, and probably farther apart than Bisayan and Tagalog, both of which are part of the larger Greater Central Philippines grouping of about 60 languages in the Philippines (more in Indonesia). Perhaps it is like the distance between Tagalog or Cebuano and one of the languages of the Northern Philippines, like Ilocano (the language of maternal grandparents, which I can sometimes recognize) or Pangalatok.

  • @kukkaistyttoiik

    @kukkaistyttoiik

    Жыл бұрын

    Finn here, I'm pretty sure that Estonian guy used non-formal version on Estonian language or at least he doesn't try to emphasis every word. Finnish guy used pretty much "standard Finnish" (not 100%) which is not really spoken in real life. It's a language for the president and news anchors.

  • @kukkaistyttoiik

    @kukkaistyttoiik

    Жыл бұрын

    For expamle: two (2) is kaksi in Finnish and kaks in Estonian. But in every day life, we Finns also use "kaks". Estonian: üks kaks kolm neli viis kuus seitse kaheksa non-formal Finnish (depends where you live, this is one example) yks kaksi kolome nelijä viis kuus seittemän kaheksan Even more non-formal Finnish yy kaa koo nee vii kuu sei kasi ysi Standard Finnish yksi kaksi kolme neljä viisi kuusi seitsemän kahdeksan

  • @hosannayeshua4446

    @hosannayeshua4446

    Жыл бұрын

    @@kukkaistyttoiik to those wondering what is ysi in formal finnish, it is yhdeksän (9), in non-formal sometimes also called yheksän or ysi

  • @65fhd4d6h5
    @65fhd4d6h5 Жыл бұрын

    I expected way more intelligibility to be honest, not only because they are the same family of languages, but also both countries are so close to each other one thinks they would've been more in contact and have exchanged a lot of vocabulary. Interesting!

  • @TheAlex29494

    @TheAlex29494

    Жыл бұрын

    They diverged thousands of years ago. I'm having a hard time understanding even 1500's Finnish so imagine how hard Estonian is

  • @65fhd4d6h5

    @65fhd4d6h5

    Жыл бұрын

    @@TheAlex29494 Spanish and Italian also started diverging a couple of thousands years ago, give or take, and they are mostly mutually intelligible.

  • @hapetE

    @hapetE

    Жыл бұрын

    ​@@TheAlex29494 1500's Finnish isn't actually hard at all once you get used to Agricola's goofy orthography and archaic vocabulary. Grammatically there's no difference whatsoever.

  • @StanleyMilgramm
    @StanleyMilgramm Жыл бұрын

    As a Finnish person who hasn't studied any languages other than the mandatory, all of these were pretty easy for me to get. A lot of the Estonian words are so similar to Finnish.

  • @NantokaNejako

    @NantokaNejako

    Жыл бұрын

    May I ask: Which languages are mandatory in Finland?

  • @jerkkub

    @jerkkub

    Жыл бұрын

    @@NantokaNejako Finnish, Swedish and English.

  • @kukkaistyttoiik

    @kukkaistyttoiik

    Жыл бұрын

    @@jerkkub While this is true for 99,99% of Finns, English isn't really mandatory. It can be replaced with any language but it's de facto mandatory.

  • @paavoilves5416

    @paavoilves5416

    Жыл бұрын

    @@kukkaistyttoiik What? In what level of schooling can you just say "no, I won't be attending the English class"?

  • @ThatBonsaipanda

    @ThatBonsaipanda

    Жыл бұрын

    For me (also finnish) it was easier to understand when I read it - but when I hear it, it's near impossible to make out what is being said.

  • @aziatix1168
    @aziatix1168 Жыл бұрын

    We stan the Ugrofinnic nations!❤️‍🔥🇫🇮🇪🇪🇭🇺😇

  • @oscebe2691
    @oscebe2691 Жыл бұрын

    Estonian= French; Finnish= Italian. That was my impression knowing neither language at all but having heard varying reports of their intelligibility. This is how I came to that conclusion: They are obviously very closely related but: Estonian has much shorter words generally, and far more monosyllables. But it is phonologically more complex. It loses a lot of final vowels and syllables present in Finnish, and what final vowels remain are often reduced to a schwa-type sound, which rarely seems to happen in Finnish. It also changes many other vowel sounds, in particular the Finnish "uo" versus Estonian "oo" or "õõ" is strongly reminiscent of French/Italian pairs like "coeur" and "cuore". These combine to give Finnish a much "clearer" sound compared to "muffled" Estonian, again like Italian and French. So you get a pair of languages that clearly spring from the same comparatively recent source, but one seems to have undergone far more changes that prevent them being intelligible to a high degree. However they can still decipher each other to some degree with effort and will have a big advantage learning the other language.

  • @Ylyan_VL

    @Ylyan_VL

    Жыл бұрын

    I think it's more like Spanish and Portuguese. Finnish is like Spanish and Estonian is like Portuguese, Finnish and Spanish are more conservative while Estonian and Portuguese have become more detached from their source language. While Spanish has very clear sounds Portuguese doesn't, for example in the word "information": Spanish: información Portuguese: informação

  • @Vizivirag

    @Vizivirag

    Жыл бұрын

    Absolutely! In Hungarian sources, you can follow how the words lost their final vowels: early Medieval writings still have them.

  • @Jen-iq7ec

    @Jen-iq7ec

    Жыл бұрын

    That was so interesting to read! (I'm estonian).

  • @Ylyan_VL

    @Ylyan_VL

    7 ай бұрын

    @@Myke_Oxlong199 I, as a native speaker of Spanish and Catalan, cannot understand Portugal's Portuguese at all. It doesn't go both ways.

  • @Hamm3rJack
    @Hamm3rJack10 ай бұрын

    I've been waiting for videos like this! Thank you for making this.

  • @sumbo8452
    @sumbo8452 Жыл бұрын

    This is just a fun and interactive Finnish-Estonian mind game

  • @johnrusin4952
    @johnrusin4952 Жыл бұрын

    Been waiting a long time for this video. It's really startling how different Finnish and Estonian are. You assume because of geographic proximity and the fact that basically all Finns and Estonians have are each other there would be a much higher level of mutual intelligibility. But yeah they really struggled. Hoping soon for Baltic and Celtic language comparisons 😀

  • @jukkahelisjoki5820

    @jukkahelisjoki5820

    10 ай бұрын

    And putting the language aside Estonia and Finland are totally different and it's quite vice verse with Sweden though Swedish still spoken in Finland.

  • @lenarteler4453
    @lenarteler4453 Жыл бұрын

    Imagine if Norbert actually got a Mansi/Khanty speaker on this show to compare it to Hungarian. Would probably be the toughest one to pull off so far

  • @sejszin
    @sejszin Жыл бұрын

    I like that you, Norbert, trying different language families, it's very interesting to observe all different languages of the world. I don't speak any Uralic language, but subtitles helps. It was very interesting!

  • @Alistajaupseeri
    @Alistajaupseeri Жыл бұрын

    This was very fun to watch. Please make more videos like this! Studying languages is fascinating and brings me joy. Estonian language have special place in my heart. Eesti, Eesti, sinne tahan vaid...

  • @Raiaramis24
    @Raiaramis24 Жыл бұрын

    For me it is so strange, that estonian dont understand finnish. But i am soviet time kid form Tallinn, who watched finnish tv a lot. But still...it is so similar.

  • @Iwoodlikethat
    @Iwoodlikethat Жыл бұрын

    Everyone did well but I'd like to point Antti's English accent! He really nailed dropping the syncopation and the rolling R and nailed our boring R and more monotone pattern! Hyve.

  • @solared
    @solared Жыл бұрын

    please make more of these! id love to see these guys again

  • @AtlantaBill
    @AtlantaBill Жыл бұрын

    A Swedish-speaking Finnish woman in a Dutch class we were taking said that, when she was young, she and her sister used to listen to Estonian radio and laugh ... because to them it just sounded like bad Finnish. (1) The Dutch name for it is 'Kelder': loanword. (2) ? (3) Danish 'telt', Old Englsih 'teld' (4) Ukko is top god in Finnish mythology.

  • @MrPrince600

    @MrPrince600

    Жыл бұрын

    wow nice well im actually a swedish finn too

  • @baronmeduse

    @baronmeduse

    Жыл бұрын

    Did you mean that 'kelder' is a loanword into Estonian? Since it's not a loanword for Dutch.

  • @egbront1506

    @egbront1506

    Жыл бұрын

    @@baronmeduse Kellari looks like a loanword from maybe Swedish as well.

  • @AtlantaBill

    @AtlantaBill

    Жыл бұрын

    @@egbront1506 Bingo!

  • @MrPrince600

    @MrPrince600

    Жыл бұрын

    @@egbront1506 hard to say you might say all of them borrow words from each other

  • @laszlofekete9245
    @laszlofekete9245 Жыл бұрын

    Watching this as a Hungarian is really fascinating. Speaking the 3rd big uralic language as native, I really paid attention if I understand something. I have to say I understood some words and phrases! Küttesüstem - Hűtőrendszer (rendszer meaning system). Matalia - Magas. Öö on sa taga magada - Öld meg magadat. Problem is the first pair means heating system - cooling system, second: short - tall, and third: Night is over, go sleep - Kill yourself. Beautiful 😂

  • @KohaAlbert

    @KohaAlbert

    Жыл бұрын

    As Estonian, I wish that I could see similar with Hungarian and Mansi/Khanty (all being Ugric languages). There's similar video about similarities between Estonian and Hungarian (word comparsion rather than mutual intelligibility) Volgaic languages would be so interesting - we hardly get to hear anything about those. Wonder how Finnish and Estonian would compare against Vepsan ("Sanskrit” of Balto-Finnic) like this. And those with Sàmic

  • @inspireit

    @inspireit

    Жыл бұрын

    @@KohaAlbert I`m a Finn and Vepsä is much closer to Finnish language than Estonia or Saami

  • @Vizivirag

    @Vizivirag

    Жыл бұрын

    Öö and yö are cognate with our éj, but they don't sound alike at first glance. At second, they are one-syllable light-harmony words with the same meaning. A lot of our cognates work this way: you need to listen to harmonies and know the voice shifts. It's so fascinating to me that our harmonies rarely change.

  • @csaba9285

    @csaba9285

    Жыл бұрын

    Hungarian is in fact the largest Uralic language, not the 3rd largest

  • @laszlofekete9245

    @laszlofekete9245

    Жыл бұрын

    @@csaba9285 3 nagy uráli nyelv van, a magyar, a finn és az észt. A videó a finnről és az észtről szól, így én a harmadikat beszélem. Nem azt írtam hogy 3rd biggest.

  • @stpftw1
    @stpftw1 Жыл бұрын

    this was so great! really interesting video. cheers from Finland!

  • @antyjohn8162
    @antyjohn8162 Жыл бұрын

    Finish sounds so melodic and smooth. It’s like a mixture of Swedish and Japanese. Estonian has a pretty unique sound, I had never heard it before. I barely understood anything that they were saying, but it was downright fascinating to watch!

  • @mikrokupu

    @mikrokupu

    Жыл бұрын

    Funny how many words in Finnish and Japanese sounds alike, few examples: - Tori (a bird in Japanese/a marketplace in Finnish) - Ase (a sweat/a weapon) - Koe (a sound/a test) - Haka (a cemetery/a hook)

  • @sursdropman

    @sursdropman

    Жыл бұрын

    @@mikrokupu Kaido ? ( a name for Guy in eesti/car tuning stile in japanese slang )

  • @thefakedanex

    @thefakedanex

    Жыл бұрын

    @@mikrokupu koe means "voice", not "sound" in Japanese

  • @siimtulev1759

    @siimtulev1759

    Жыл бұрын

    @@mikrokupu Also Estonian and Japanese similar! :D One of the funniest thing I have found is that "no/ei/iie" and "yes/jah/haj". Opposite :D

  • @mikrokupu

    @mikrokupu

    Жыл бұрын

    @@thefakedanex Thanks for the correction!

  • @JeanLoupRSmith
    @JeanLoupRSmith Жыл бұрын

    Ha, my Finnish is absolutely dreadful (at least by the standards I impose myself) and I still understood that "Kellari" was the first word. That was a fun exercise given I'm quite familiar with Finnish but hardly at all with Estonian.

  • @johannesmajamaki2626

    @johannesmajamaki2626

    Жыл бұрын

    As a native Finn, I did kinda guess it but wasn't sure at all. You don't usually keep kitchen appliances in the basement, nor is it that closely associated with a kitchen.

  • @evahallik

    @evahallik

    Жыл бұрын

    He said home appliances, probably meaning a washing machine and a dryer.

  • @johannesmajamaki2626

    @johannesmajamaki2626

    Жыл бұрын

    @@evahallik do people have those in basements? where they also keep food? that's the thing, I was kinda going kodinhoitohuone from that

  • @arsiarskila
    @arsiarskila11 ай бұрын

    Thank you for this video. It has been quite a while since I last watched a video in its entirety and truly enjoyed it from start to finish, but this one was remarkably captivating! As a Finn, I found this video exceptionally fascinating.

  • @tyynaestonia5220
    @tyynaestonia5220 Жыл бұрын

    Kristofer said high-rise building(KÕRGHOONE), which is not wrong. We can also finish "Kerrostalo" translate a house with floors (KORRUSMAJA), but it is not used in spoken Estonian, but it is an understandable direct translation. We say fot that apartment building(KORTERMAJA.)

  • @gorgioarmanioso151
    @gorgioarmanioso151 Жыл бұрын

    this video was so expected in so many places in youtube As a colombian immigrant raised up in sweden , i grew up with friends with finish background this very interesting..

  • @d.v.t
    @d.v.t Жыл бұрын

    Been waiting for this!! 😊

  • @vitbenesovskymuzika
    @vitbenesovskymuzika Жыл бұрын

    So nice 🥰 Thanks, Norbert, Kristofer and Antti 👍

  • @michaelstephanustranquillus
    @michaelstephanustranquillus Жыл бұрын

    Macte virtute! (that's Latin for 'Good job!) Hyvää työtä! Since Antti pretty obviously has never studied Estonian, it turned out to be rather difficult for him to get the very few key words that would have improved his understanding drastically. I think it would be interesting to redo the whole thing with two people who have already had more exposure to the cognate language. Now, Antti understood maybe about 30-40% of what Kristofer was saying. Someone else with some knowledge of the key differences between Finnish and Estonian would be able to understand at least 60-70%. :)

  • @Telfia
    @Telfia Жыл бұрын

    This video was really interesting to watch! I’ve spoken both of those two since I was a child and didn’t really know how much the citizens of Estonia understood Finnish. Thanks for sharing the experiment!

  • @dinblasjalv1643
    @dinblasjalv164310 ай бұрын

    Yes! Yes! Yes! I've been waiting for this video for years! Dziękuję, Norbert

  • @nikke2404
    @nikke2404 Жыл бұрын

    As a finn I have been waiting for this episode. Thanks for you of making it! 🙂👍

  • @randomdriver
    @randomdriver Жыл бұрын

    As a Finnish to me it was so easy to understand Kristofer. I have never learned Estonian, but I do visit there many times in a year

  • @Juos10kustu
    @Juos10kustu Жыл бұрын

    wow this is very well made video!!! Tilattu ! :)

  • @suoppi
    @suoppi7 ай бұрын

    This was a fun watch! 🙂

  • @asiersanz8941
    @asiersanz8941 Жыл бұрын

    As a basque speaker myself, and knowing that my language isn't related at all with these languages, it's kind of strange that the finnish sounds familiar to me

  • @tuijasaari1463

    @tuijasaari1463

    Жыл бұрын

    I once heard two men speaking a language I just couldn’t recognise. It was weird as it somehow sounded so familiar but nothing like any other language. Since I didn’t recognise the language, I was already guessing that this must be Basque! So I went up to these two men to ask about their language and sure enough, they were Basques. Hearing your language was somehow a surreal thing. There are some genetical studies proving that the Basques and the Sámis are related. According to that study, both groups lived in the same refuge area during the last ice age. And as the ice started retreating, a group of people started to migrate to north and these were the people we nowadays know as the Sámis. I’m from the Sámis from my mother’s side, 😊

  • @asiersanz8941

    @asiersanz8941

    Жыл бұрын

    @@tuijasaari1463 What a nice story, my friend. I think that the simmilarity in the sound of both languages is due to their vocalic system, so similar. They are very vocalic languages and that makes them have a similar rythm when speaking. I've heard about the genetical researches that say samis and basques are somehow related, but I think it's just a theory. The most believed theory about us relates us to georgians/kartvelians in the Caucasus, but nothing has been proved. It seems that we've been in this corner of Europe for millennia. In fact, some tools like, axe, knife, arrow, hoe... are formed in basque language with the root "stone/rock", so some say those words go back to the stone age. Who knows! Thank you for sharing that nice story

  • @tuijasaari1463

    @tuijasaari1463

    Жыл бұрын

    @@asiersanz8941 so fascinating! ❤️

  • @robthetraveler1099
    @robthetraveler1099 Жыл бұрын

    Did not realize that Finnish and Estonian were that different!

  • @xurify
    @xurify Жыл бұрын

    Glad you finally did Estonian! Great video :D

  • @tysonl.taylor-gerstner1558
    @tysonl.taylor-gerstner1558 Жыл бұрын

    FINALLY! I was wanting you to do this one. I don't know if you saw my suggestion about it.

  • @corinna007
    @corinna00711 ай бұрын

    Finally a video about Finnish! I've been learning Finnish for about eight years now, so this was really fun to see how much I could understand. 😊 The language is so fascinating. And Antti is even from Tampere! I love it there. 💙🤍 Rakkaus Kanadasta, Suomi. 🇫🇮🇨🇦

  • @Juraberg
    @Juraberg Жыл бұрын

    I do not understand either Estonian or Finnish. Before this video, I thought that they were much closer to each other,, somewhat like two strong dialects. After this video, I now realise that they are probably as different as Portuguese and Spanish or Italian and Spanish. Thanks for this interesting video.

  • @tuijasaari1463

    @tuijasaari1463

    Жыл бұрын

    They’re much more apart than Portuguese and Spanish,which in written are almost identical. I speak fluent Portuguese, thus I understand written Spanish perfectly and almost everything in written Italian too. But, as a Finnish, from Estonian written I can only understand a word or two.

  • @asjaosaline5987

    @asjaosaline5987

    Жыл бұрын

    Finnish and Estonian language splited up more than 2000 years ago, but 300 years ago it was still more intelligeble, after Language reformation it all changed. Southern Estonian language Võro language is more similar to Finnish, but real close relative to Võro is Livonian.

  • @whatever9554

    @whatever9554

    11 ай бұрын

    I'm finnish and my experience with hearing estonian is that it kinda depends on luck (if by accident the estonian uses words that are similar to the finnish equivalents) and the length of an explanation just how much I understand. Obviously, estonians can often switch to english and that's definitely way easier than trying to climb the language barrier - but once or twice I've spoken with an older estonian who does not understand english and since I do not speak estonian we've had to try communicating with just our respective the native languages. This video demonstrated the language barrier pretty well. The estonian speaker had to speak for a pretty long while before the finnish listener had gathered enough clues that it was possible to make a good guess. I also got the idea of a room, and cooking, and I would have guessed the room is cellar. The words for dark and cool were very similar to finnish equivalents, and the word for cellar was close enough to be a hint. I think most finns watching likely guessed cellar as well - and actually I think the finn in the video might have deduced that the room was cellar as well if he'd been an observer instead of an active participant and kinda 'under a spotlight'. I imagine it can be kinda stressful to be the guesser here. Language barriers tend to make social interactions quite awkward, being filmed can make one feel stressed, and the whole thing is basically a public test - so it's not really an ideal setting for great brainwork.

  • @whatever9554

    @whatever9554

    11 ай бұрын

    I must add - it's kinda difficult to separate how much I understood, or the finn in the video understood due to our FINNISH. We also learn swedish, english, insert other random languages... So knowledge of another language could easily be what helps solve a riddle. And naturally, finns aren't the only people who learn several languages at school or at home.

  • @joonasnaski9513
    @joonasnaski9513 Жыл бұрын

    Please make more of these

  • @mikahamari6420
    @mikahamari6420 Жыл бұрын

    This was great to watch, thank you. It went really well and showed how two speakers can find the words they both know and build more common ground on that basis. There are many false friends between Estonian and Finnish, but their falseness is rarely total, but more often relative. Most of the time these similar words with different meanings still belong to same semantic field, and once you learn them, they are very easy to remember. Words meaning houses of different size or parts of house are one example with examples like talu/talo, maja/maja and hoone/huone. Estonian word means bigger house than equivalent Finnish word (and huone means room). As could be seen on this test, recognizing the word opens you a correct semantic field "something connected to houses" and thus helps you to understand the whole sentence and the subject, what is talked about. Same with word magama/maata: literally in Finnish it means to lie down, but association to sleeping as with Estonian word is always there, because we normally lie down when we sleep. So, most false friends are not on the realm of homonymy but polysemy, having series of interconnected meanings that have a common root and have developed during time through metaphor and other processes of semantic change.

  • @jerkkub
    @jerkkub Жыл бұрын

    Loved it! Was surprised how much i understood Estonian as a Finnish.

  • @Morhgoz
    @Morhgoz Жыл бұрын

    I did guess first one right! I'm Finnish btw. Well Savonian, aka Eastern Finn so in our dialect might be bit closer someway etc. There is also theory that Western and Eastern Finns where originally two different Finno-Ugric peoples which then mixed up in Finland and Savonians are mix of Tavastians (western finns), Karelians (eastern finns) and Sami....

  • @christianheikkonen

    @christianheikkonen

    Жыл бұрын

    Most likely Western Finns came through sea from Western Estonia meanwhile in Eastern Finns have come through land.

  • @Morhgoz

    @Morhgoz

    Жыл бұрын

    @@christianheikkonen That might be legit....

  • @romka_ind
    @romka_ind Жыл бұрын

    Finnish and Estoninan so similar but yet so different 😊 hard to compare but it seem like it is Dutch and English or Dutch and German.

  • @mikrokupu

    @mikrokupu

    Жыл бұрын

    Yeah comparing to Dutch/German sounds right

  • @Anniz
    @Anniz11 ай бұрын

    i rarely find language type of videos super interesting but this was a great video since it allowed me as the viewer to follow the conversation without subtitles to try and see how much I could personally understand as well. I guessed Kellari as my first guess as well which was very fun!

  • @mattiaikas1634
    @mattiaikas1634 Жыл бұрын

    This was very interesting to see! I`m Finnish and I have a very dear friend who`s from Estonia but living in Finland, BUT we live four hours apart so we`re in different dialect regions so there`s one more curveball to take into consideration there. Whatsapp messages are usually sent in English though when we get to see each other sth like once or twice a year we usually speak Finnish (when we`re not speaking English LOL) I have tried to learn Estonian but I got so much going on that has been set to the back burner for now...

  • @Anskulainen
    @Anskulainen Жыл бұрын

    Ihan sairaan siisti video 🤓 Oon ite Virosta kotoisin alunperin ja oli mielenkiintoista kuunnella, josko vielä ymmärtäisin viroa 😁. Kyl mä aika paljon lopulta ymmärsin. Aivan mahtava idea videolle!! 👏

  • @john2335

    @john2335

    Жыл бұрын

    Alunperin you're more likely from chelyaba.

  • @littlebl0nde
    @littlebl0nde11 ай бұрын

    This is so interesting to watch. I love how much these two languages have similarities.

  • @NestaSimbaSauti
    @NestaSimbaSauti Жыл бұрын

    Finnish sounds like real elvish. In fact Tolkien's elvish languages was based of finnish and celtic. Interesting mix by the way. But real finnish is even more elvish somehow for me ear.

  • @eliasnjetski1146
    @eliasnjetski1146 Жыл бұрын

    This was one of the most interesting videos actually. Well, in conclusion the languages are not as similar as the Scandinavian languages are to each other. However, Finnish and Estonian are more or less like Swedish and German or something. 🙂 Which is kind of similar and English is also in some way similar to English, but not as close as Dutch and German is to Swedish. Sami and Finnish would be quite interesting.

  • @Kat-V
    @Kat-V Жыл бұрын

    I don't understand a single word of either of these languages but it's fascinating

  • @raffe7889
    @raffe7889 Жыл бұрын

    This was amazing!